Adapt or die
by Tom Sullivan
After the kakistocracy follies of the last few weeks and after watching both Democrats and the national press struggle to adapt to the new order, "adapt or die" came to mind from Moneyball:
Grady:Replace "baseball" with "politics" and I imagine you could hear the same conversation several times a day inside the Beltway between sage, old political hands and the new kids on the block. It's wisdom handed down from party elders with decades on their resumes of doing what they've always done, the way they've always done it, because that's the way it's always been done and because that's what donors are comfortable funding. Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) tells Oakland manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt), "Baseball thinking is medieval. They are asking all the wrong questions." Not only baseball.
Baseball isn't just numbers.
It's not science.
If it was, anybody could do
what we're doing, but they can't
Because they don't know what we know.
They don't have our experience
And they don't have our intuition.
Billy:
Okay.
Grady:
Billy, you got a kid in there that's got
a degree in economics from Yale.
You got a scout here with with 29 years
of baseball experience.
You're listening to the wrong one.
Now, there are intangibles that
only baseball people understand.
You're discounting what scouts
have done for 150 years?
Even yourself?
Billy:
Adapt or die.
The traditional Washington ways of messaging have not changed either. Members of Congress speak from the floor to largely empty press galleries. They gather in TV studios, where few networks cut in to cover them. They respond to tweets with wordy press releases, columns, or open letters, each one staff-edited down to the last period after the last talking point.Adapt or die.
And they hold press stunts that worked before Trump came to town. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Monday, for instance, that Democrats would “hold the floor late into the night” to protest the Obamacare repeal push with cameras rolling. Less clear was whether anyone would be watching.
“if you challenge the conventional wisdom, you will find ways to do things much better than they are currently done.” ― Michael Lewis, MoneyballBilly Beane has to build a winning team for his bottom-of-the-barrel club using the limited budget he's given. He has to get creative. He does. Democrats are facing an epic shitstorm dismasted and without a rudder. To get through it and come out on the other side, they had better find some fresh thinking.